


Where I am going you can't save me

by thesweetpianowritingdownmylife



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Don't read if you are part of the CR cast or crew, F/F, Hanahaki Disease, Multi, Vomiting, background Shadowgast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:42:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22324279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesweetpianowritingdownmylife/pseuds/thesweetpianowritingdownmylife
Summary: Yasha starts coughing up petals, white and blue. There is no doubt to whom they belong.-Aka Beaujasha Hanahaki AU. Set after episode 89.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha, Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett/Yasha, Jester Lavorre/Yasha, Yasha & Essek Thelyss, Yasha/Zuala (Critical Role)
Comments: 92
Kudos: 634





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was feeling guilty a few weeks ago for writing "fake dating" fic, thinking it was too much of a cliché, and I consoled myself literally saying "It could be worse, at least it's not a hanahaki au".  
> Let it be known that I have no dignity, and no shame. This fic is practically finished...and it's the longest fic I have ever written. How did this happen. I blacked out for a week and suddenly I had written 10k words, and then I decided to rewrite the ENTIRE THING because I wasn't satisfied with it, and now it's longer. Help?
> 
> Title from Sun Gangs by The Veils, a song from Yasha's playlist.

_Her mother had always guarded her against making forbidden attachments. “You have to consider what’s at stake,” she used to say, skinning a carcass close to the fire, blood in her hands. Yasha, ten years old or less, with her long hair braided into three braids as it was customary for the children of her tribe, nodded with a grave expression._

_She had tended the sick with her father, seen them languish and waste away, coughing up mouthfuls of blossoms. The sounds of agony, their hopeless fight for breath, would forever be engraved in her brain. They were kept apart in the sick tent, isolated. Even if Hanahaki disease isn’t contagious, “foolishness often is,” her mother used to say. Her father nodded, eyes lost in the bonfire. He spoke little, when there was a new patient under his care._

_They taught her to hate them, hate their weakness. She promised them, over and over, that she would Do Better, that she would conquer her emotions, and not fall in the irrationality of loving someone who had not been chosen for her. “Flowers are pretty,” her mother used to say, “but they only bring you death.” She always had taken it as gospel._

_That is, until her closest friend, Zuala, had fallen ill._

***

For the first time in months, Yasha wakes up contented. Jester is curled up against her back, one arm over her waist and knees poking the back of her thighs. Behind her, she can hear Beau’s softly snoring as she lies sprawled up in every direction. The bed should be too small to hold the three of them comfortably, but Yasha would not have it any other way; nothing compares to the feeling of waking up feeling safe with both of them.

She disentangles herself from Jester’s grip carefully, trying not to wake her up. In the soft morning light, her blue skin looks soft and inviting; Yasha has to restrain herself from putting a stray curl behind Jester’s ear, and kiss her freckled cheek. As she leaves the small cottage room, she steals one last look at Beau, hair disheveled and mouth open, relaxed as she never is when awake. The picture takes her breath away.

She goes downstairs to the dining room, and scans it for any of her friends. She’s an early riser, so she’s surprised to see Nott, already going to town on a plate of assorted meats at the back of the room. When she notices Yasha, she gestures for her to come over and for the bored teenager at the bar to bring a similar plate for the aasimar. Yasha sits next to her at the table, stomach growling, and suppresses the urge to steal a piece of bacon while waiting for her own meal. Instead she watches her short friend, skin cleaner than yesterday but still wearing the same yellow dress stained with blood and dirt. Nott squirms a little under her gaze.

“Do I have something on my face?” she screeches.

She does, actually. There are twin rivulets of grease coming from the sides of her mouth. But she’s is not staring at her for that reason. “No. I just like seeing you. It’s been a while.”

Nott opens her mouth, and it looks like she is going to make a joke of it, but apparently she rethinks it and instead bites down on the chicken leg she has in her hand. “I like seeing you too,” she comments after swallowing, eyes not straying from the plate.

“Is your husband…Yeza, right? Is he okay?” Yasha asks earnestly. She wonders if they shouldn’t rush back to Rosohna, so that he doesn’t have to stay alone in that big house for longer than necessary.

“Oh yes, he’s quite okay.” Nott’s face lightens up at the mere mention of him, lips stretching into a smile around her sharp teeth. “He is with Luc, now, down in Nicodranas. Marion is taking care of them.”

“Ah, that’s nice.” Her protein-heavy breakfast arrives, and they are silent while they eat. She gorges on the ribs, the chicken, the black sausages. She almost cries with relief after two months of living rough, eating berries and the occasional raw rabbit when Obann remembered that she and Jourrael needed to eat to live. As she nibbles on the crispy bacon, she asks, “Anything new that I missed?”

Nott’s demeanor changes instantly. She freezes in place, suddenly tense, and puts down the sausage that was halfway to her mouth. She wipes her hands on the already grimy dress and wrings them together, looking down with unseeing eyes. It alarms Yasha, who starts going through their acquaintances in her head, thinking one of them might have died. Nott’s family and Marion were okay. Essek? The mage seems far too prim to put himself in any dangerous situations. Have they had news of someone from one of the Nein’s families? Caleb’s was dead, by Nott’s own accidental admission. Beau’s? She _had_ seemed tense. Maybe…

“There’s something you should know.” Nott’s fingers dance, tangling with each other. She makes several false starts, seeming to think better about it after she opens her mouth. She starts tugging on her braids, playing with them. “I’m not sure if I should tell you.”

“Why? Did someone die? Is someone sick?” She keeps her voice hushed to avoid alarming the other patrons, but her heart is starting to beat wildly on her chest. “Do we owe a lot of money to somebody?”

“No! Nothing like that!” Nott yells back, uncaring of who hears them. Luckily, only the teenager wiping the counter seems to give them a bit of a stink eye. Nott mercifully lowers her voice down to a whisper. “I was told this in the utmost of confidences, so I don’t know if I should tell you.”

Yasha frowns. “Well, then don’t.” If it’s nothing to be alarmed about, then she does not really need to know.

“But… you want to know,” Nott reveals conspirationally, looking at her and winking almost spasmodically. “You really want to know.”

“Do I?” She frowns and goes back to her plate, stuffing a meatball in her mouth before it gets cold. “I don’t want you to reveal anyone’s secrets if…”

“Oh, fuck it!” Nott yells again, going back to a whisper in the next sentence. “Beau has a crush on Jester!”

Yasha swallows the half-chewed meat in her mouth in one big gulp. It is as if someone has pulled the plug from under her, and all the nice emotions she has been feeling this morning, the safety of waking up next to her friends, the freedom of having her body back under her control, the joy at being able to eat a well-cooked meal, everything goes down the drain. Instead, a cold dread climbs up her back, filling her head with fog. “Oh?”

“Shit, fuck, balls,” Nott murmurs, crushing a sausage in her fist. “Fuck it. Beau told me not to tell _Jester_. Everybody else is fair game.” Her eyes jump up to Yasha’s, wide and scared. “Don’t tell her I told you, though.”

It is the furthest thing from her mind. Yasha’s focusing on breathing through the knot that has taken residence at the back of her throat, the crushing pressure suddenly on her chest. She looks down at her plate, but now it looks unappetizing. The whole world looks dimmer, like a cloud has covered the sun. The decorations of the place, that a moment ago seemed cheerful and quaint, now seem tacky and depressing. Even the wood of the table looks offending, although she would not be able to explain why.

She has come back too late.

She tries to stay in the moment, instead of descending down a spiral of dark thoughts. She can stave them off for now; her friend is here, and the others will also come downstairs soon. She swallows several times, trying to make the knot in the back of her throat disappear, but it doesn’t work. She keeps her breathing under control. Her stomach is churning, but she’s fairly certain that she can keep her breakfast in.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asks, just to say something that is not a sob.

Nott is not looking at her with pity, which she’s grateful for. She’s not looking at her at all, in fact, keeping her eyes on the door that leads to the bedrooms instead, probably making sure none of their friends interrupt their conversation. “Beau used to talk about your muscles and your ass all the time, before. I didn’t want you to think she stopped because of anything _you_ did.” She looks at her now, fierce. “Because you didn’t. We all love you the same way we did before you left, and…”

The rest of her words don’t reach Yasha’s ears. A sudden cough, dry and hard, catches her by surprise, and she covers her mouth with her hand. The knot in the back of her throat disappears, and instead…

 _Oh, no_. There’s something in her mouth. It’s soft and velvety, flat and yielding. She stops breathing. _Not again_.

She can’t hear anything, because her ears are ringing. She sees Caleb come down the stairs, looking like he has got no sleep at all, and Nott signals him to come over to them. The wizard stumbles to their table and sits right in front of Nott; he makes a cushion with his arms on the table and lays his head on it. Yasha is glad that he doesn’t require conversation at the moment, because she doesn’t think she could produce any words. She pushes the thing in her mouth between her gum and her cheek, making sure it is hidden; she could probably pull it out and neither of her table companions would notice, but she cannot take that risk.

She recognizes the taste. It’s from a rose.

Somehow, she finds the breath to excuse herself, and even to offer her half-eaten plate to Caleb, who accepts it with a mumble. Yasha can hear Nott needling him to eat something as she walks away from the table, straight as a rod, hoping they are too distracted by each other to notice her stiff posture. She feels Nott’s eyes bore in the back of her neck, but she does not turn around. She can talk to her later, thank her for the information and tell her that no, really, it’s okay, she’s relieved that Beau is not going to treat her like a piece of meat anymore, her crude flirtations weren’t the highlight of her day anyway.

There is a petal in her mouth that calls her a liar. But Nott doesn’t need to know that.

She rushes back to her room, but stops short of the door. Jester and Beau are still inside; she can’t let them see, either. A tickle at the back of the throat is the only warning this time when she starts coughing, stepping back as she does; it wouldn’t do to wake them with the noise. She hits the other side of the hallway with her back, and stays there, breathing heavily. There are two things in her mouth now, but the second one is smaller, and has a different taste.

She spits them into her hand, and her fears are confirmed; there is no way that these two come from the same plant. The big one, the rose petal, is white, the small one light blue. She doesn’t recognize the second. But there is no doubt to whom either of them belong.

“They taste better if you steep them in hot water,” a deep voice says from the doorway of one of the other rooms.

She raises her head in time to see Caduceus carefully closing the door of his room behind him, probably to avoid disturbing a still-sleeping Fjord. He looks thinner than before they parted ways, gaunt. The bags under his eyes seem to have taken a permanent residence there, and his hair is almost white instead of its previous vibrant pink. This transformation had already been underway when she had last seen him, but now that she looks at him in the light of day streaming through the hallway windows, she can see that his condition has worsened considerably. However, she has no time to ponder what this means; the firbolg is looking at the petals in her hand. She closes her fist and drops it to her side, but she knows that the damage is done.

Caduceus sees the sudden panic bloom in her face, and raises his arms, placating. “Hey, no, I’m not judging. Believe me, I ate my good share of flowers when I was a kid. They look appetizing, but most of them aren’t very good.” His voice is calm, the slow cadence that she had missed so much, and his smile is free of judgment.

 _What the fuck is he talking about_ , she thinks.

“You grew up in a place without flowers, right?” He shrugs. “It’s normal that you didn’t know that you can’t eat them off the ground.”

Yasha nods numbly. Her nails are leaving half-crescent marks on her palm, but she’s starting to relax. _He doesn’t know. He’s not going to tell them_.

He winks at her. “I won’t tell anyone you were doing that, don’t worry. And if you find more flowers that you would like to put in your mouth, bring them to me, and we can probably make tea out of them, deal?”

She can muster a smile at that, at the tenderness and understanding, even if it is misplaced. He pats her shoulder and goes to join their friends downstairs. As soon as his head disappears from view, Yasha opens a window and lets the wind outside blow away the petals from her open hand. She latches it closed and rests her head against it, its cool surface bringing relief to her budding headache. She pulls away when she hears one of the doors at her back open, and she sees Jester coming out of it, yawning and stretching her arms over her head. The motion pulls up her nightgown a couple of inches, and Yasha has to make an effort to keep her eyes on the tiefling’s face. The vision of Jester with bed hair and a soft, just-woken-up expression, makes something slither in her lungs, and tickles her throat.

She’s in deep, deep trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

_Yasha knew Zuala was made for greater things; her future held promise. There was no one her age in the tribe who ran faster, had a keener eye for the hunt, or could make you roll harder with laughter. The elders spoke of choosing her as the new leader when their current one was too feeble to continue her task. So it made no sense, no sense at all, when she came to Yasha, face bloated with tears, and showed her the violet petal that had come from inside her body._

_She had just been promised to Tural, another youth of their tribe, to be married when they both came of age. A good match, an advantageous arrangement. A logical one._

_“You have to help me hide this,” she pleaded._

_Yasha knew than hiding it would only hinder the inevitable, and get her in trouble on top of that. She said yes anyway._

_She kept her place beside her, covered for her with excuses and even covered her with her body, to stop prying eyes from seeing her wracked with coughs. She kept up the charade, as Zuala wanted, and was the only one to watch her waste away, her speed falling, her jokes losing volume, her arrows missing the mark more often than not._

***

They have all gathered in the War Room, where they are discussing the finer details of a permanent armistice and what each side is willing to give. Caduceus is coming through the door with tea for everyone. For Nott, who is dozing in a corner, already tired of the boring conversation, he has brought a strong black tea to try to keep her on her feet. Another mug of the same brew goes to Caleb, who gulps it down too fast and burns his tongue. There are two mugs of lemon-scented green tea, one for Jester, who wraps her hands around the steaming mug gleefully, and one for Beau, who leaves it on a shelf to cool down, and will probably forget about it. Caduceus himself will be partaking in a chamomile with anise, his favorite, and a second mug of it goes to Fjord, who thanks him for it with a kiss on the cheek. Yasha takes her own mug to her lips, and smells it. Something floral and sweet, one of its ingredients is roses. She tries her best not to grimace; after all, he is just misguidedly trying to satisfy her curiosity.

She cannot guess what the firbolg has brewed for Essek. The Shadowhand bends over the table, where two maps –one of the Empire and one of Xhorhas– are laid next to each other. He has gathered his mantle in one hand, so that it doesn’t cascade over the table, but, to Jester’s chagrin, it hasn’t bunched up high enough to let them see his feet. Frumpkin tries to rub against his legs, and meows in frustration when he only finds loose fabric.

Fjord is listing the possible locations for the peace talks that they have come up with, pointing them in the map. If Essek’s raised eyebrow is any indication, he doesn’t seem to be any more impressed than Oremid Hass had been. 

“A volcano.” He enunciates every syllable, as if trying to convince himself that he has heard correctly.

“Think of it this way: if the talks go badly, it will be very easy to get rid the Empire dignitaries by pushing them into the lava,” Fjord explains, half a smile dancing on his lips.

Essek’s face cracks as he snorts. He presses his lips together, trying to suppress his amusement, and clears his throat. “You lot seem to have a lot of love for the people in charge of your country.”

Fjord scoffs. “I’m from Port Damali.”

“I’m from Nicodranas,” Jester pipes up, standing very straight all of a sudden. She had been bending down to try to peer under Essek’s mantle, but he seems none the wiser.

Yasha doesn’t say anything. Essek knows she’s Xhorhasian, but maybe he has forgotten, and she doesn’t think it would be wise to remind him. If things go badly, she doesn’t want to be conscripted into the fight against her will.

Beau smirks. “Yeah, man, the only people from the Empire are Caleb, Nott, and myself. Caleb was seriously fucked over by them…”

Essek’s eyes jump, razor-sharp, to the wizard, but only for a moment.

“…I’m part of an international organization that weeds out corruption, and well, Nott…”

“I answer to no power on this plane or beyond,” Nott mumbles as she pours alcohol into her mug of tea.

Essek chuckles at Nott’s declaration. “The Bright Queen is concerned about your performance as a neutral party, because she deems you more likely to have an allegiance to our enemies, but perhaps her worries are unfounded.”

“You can trust us,” Caleb comments, staring at the half-empty mug in his hands with a frown. “We’ve spent long enough trying to convince you.”

Essek’s eyes soften for a second, but the expression is gone so fast that Yasha thinks she might have imagined it. He turns to look at Beau. “Any other suggestions?”

It’s Jester who replies. “King Dwendal’s butt. If we get that big ol’ head of his out of it, I think there would be plenty of space.”

A chorus of giggles explodes around the room; the line even extracts a surprised bark of laughter from Essek, who covers his mouth immediately, turning it into a cough. It also makes Yasha cough, but for different reasons. She experiences a moment of panic, but everybody else’s laughter covers up her hacking. Beau is saying something that she can’t hear, and the laughter renews. She quickly looks at her hand and is startled to see three small petals instead of the usual one or two. She frowns at them, fear of discovery momentarily forgotten; she started showing symptoms only a couple of days ago, there shouldn’t have been such a quick progression. She remembers herself and looks up in time to see that her moment of hesitation was enough for Essek to catch her discomfort. Her stomach plummets when she sees him looking directly at her hand. She closes it, but it’s too late; he is fixing her with a long, calculating look. She squirms under it, unsure how to react to deflect suspicion. He looks away, and addresses Jester.

“I would say that would count as ‘hostile territory’ in the eyes of the Bright Queen, sadly.”

Now it’s Caleb’s turn to be startled into laughter, it seems. What comes out is a sound like ‘hihihi’, and immediately he clamps a hand on his mouth and turns a deep red color. Essek’s expression is smug for a moment, before he manages to school it back to his usual detached amusement.

“If that is all, perhaps it is time for me to return to the Lucid Bastion to update the Queen on these developments,” Essek says, a bit reluctantly.

“You could stay for the concert!” Jester suggests.

“The…concert?”

Caduceus nods, excitement bright in his eyes, if a bit more subdued than the blue tiefling’s. “I have recently acquired a bone flute, and Miss Yasha here a bone harp. Miss Jester can summon her spiritual weapon in the form of a tiny piano. It’s going to be great.”

Essek looks up at Yasha, raising an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were proficient in music.”

“They most definitely are not,” Fjord interjects with a haunted expression. “It’s going to be a nightmare and you should be as far away from it as possible.”

“Fjord!” Jester and Beau protest, accusing.

“Essek is my friend, and friends don’t let friends be subjected to the atrocious playing of their other friends,” Fjord explains, refusing to be shamed.

Jester huffs in protest, but Yasha sees Essek’s face soften when Fjord calls him a friend. He turns to look at Caleb, silently asking for his opinion.

“I wanted to request one more lesson from you, if you had the time, but…” he glances at the three would-be players, “my recommendation is that you save yourself,” he whispers gravely.

“I will be going, then.” He starts for the door, then hovers, hesitating. “Actually, I would like a private word with Yasha, if you don’t mind.”

All eyes in the room turn to her. She clamps her fist harder on the petals, paranoid they may attract unwanted attention, and tries to put on a mildly baffled expression, as if she has no idea about what the Shadowhand wants to say to her. “Of course.”

As the rest of the Nein start filing out of the War Room, Essek calls out to Caleb. “I can return tomorrow with a couple of spells that might be of interest to you, if you can wait that long,” he teases.

Caleb smiles. “I can. Thank you, Herr Thelyss.”

Once they are alone, Yasha and Essek stare at each other for a long moment, faces turning much more grave, daring each other to speak first. There is a rustle coming from behind the door, as if someone was pressing against it, trying to listen in. Essek makes a complicated movement with his hands and they are enveloped by a golden bubble, a barrier that keeps all sounds from getting in or out. Content that their conversation is now private, he breaks the silence.

“I’ve heard this affliction is not nearly as common in the Empire as it is in Xhorhas, which might be why your friends haven’t figured out what is going on with you yet.” His voice is studiously nonchalant, but his expression remains serious.

“I have it under control,” she replies automatically, yet without much conviction. She moves towards the small window to discard the petals.

Essek raises a white eyebrow, but doesn’t otherwise call her out on her lie. “May I ask how far along is it?”

“It’s still in its early stages,” she replies. She wonders how long that’s going to last, if she has gone from one petal to three in just a few days, but she is not willing to share that.

He narrows his eyes. “How long until your performance in battle starts being affected?”

Yasha tenses, raises her chin. “I’m more than capable to perform under duress.”

“I don’t doubt your abilities,” Essek placates her, “I’m just saying that the others are going to notice, soon.”

She deflates and hangs her head, shrugging. What’s there to be done about it?

He sighs, and his demeanor changes. He rubs at his temples, looking at her with a tired expression. “I’m sorry for being so direct. I didn’t mean to antagonize you.”

Yasha accepts his apology with a nod, relaxing minutely as well.

His voice is gentle when he asks, “Is there any possibility that your feelings might not be unrequited?”

She snorts and shakes her head, crossing her arms and hunching a little, letting her hair cover her face partially. It’s embarrassing, it’s shameful. She should know better. She hates that now the Shadowhand knows how undependable she is, how much of a liability she’s about to become.

Essek hesitates before continuing. “If you want, I can provide you with access to the best healing facilities in Xhorhas. They have plenty of experience removing–”

“No,” she interrupts him, resolute.

“It’s a death sentence, though,” Essek points out, not unkindly. “If you could just–”

“No!” her voice raises, her arms fall to the side, hands curled into fists. “Not an option. I’d rather die than forget them.”

He frowns. “That’s a myth. The procedure wouldn’t make you forget them, just your feelings for them.”

Yasha is taken aback. She examines his face to search for a lie, but she doesn’t find it. In fact, he looks more open and honest than she’s ever seen him be, not trying to hide the concern and worry that plague him, the tiredness that he tried to mask when the others were around. A bit overwhelmed, she paces around the room, considering this new piece of information. He seems content to just wait until she comes to a conclusion.

 _Even if it’s true, it’s still not good enough_ , she thinks with some hesitance. She comes to a stop and shakes her head.

Essek sighs. “Nobody wants to, at first. But I urge you to at least give it some thought.” He walks to the door, but stops with his hand on the knob and his back to her. When he speaks again, his voice is soft, even more vulnerable. “They were heartbroken when you were taken from them. I was worried that they might destroy both the Empire and the Dynasty just to get you back. They went through hell to save you, and if they knew what you…” He sighs again, then composes himself. When he speaks again it sounds harsher, the mask back in place. “Think about it, for their sake if not for yours.”

Guilt hits her in the stomach like a physical punch. _Like he intended_ , she thinks. _What a prick_.

Essek lifts the muffling spell and opens the door, catching Jester in his arms as she almost tumbles to the ground. She must have been practically lying on the door, pressing her whole body against it in an attempt to hear them.

“Miss Lavorre, it is very rude to listen to private conversations,” Essek says, failing to keep a tinge of amusement out of his voice.

Jester rights herself, smoothing down her skirt, and stares at him with narrowed eyes. “You did something to the door so I couldn’t hear shit, didn’t you?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” He smiles smugly, sends one last warning look at Yasha, and walks out of the room.

Immediately Jester turns to Yasha and skips up to her. “So? What did he want to talk about?”

Yasha pushes down on the emotions threatening to choke her and smiles tenuously. “Oh, he just wanted to ask me permission to ask Caleb out.”

“WHAT?” Jester yells. “Wait until I tell…!”

“It’s a joke.”

“Oh.” She pouts, and then frowns. “Yeah that didn’t make sense. Shouldn’t he ask Nott?” She shakes her head. “What was it, really?”

“He just…” Yasha scrambles to come up with something, “wanted to know what we did, with Obann. He had some questions.”

“Oh,” Jester repeats, now with a cautious tone. “Are you okay? Did he bring up bad memories?” She takes Yasha’s hands in hers, looking into her eyes. “Do you need to talk about it or do you need a distraction?”

Yasha clears her throat, tries to swallow down the petals she can feel there. “I’m okay. Let’s just…go do something fun, okay?”

Jester kisses her cheek and leads her downstairs, babbling about how to rearrange their living room in order to have a proper space for the concert.

…

The next morning, when Essek returns for Caleb’s promised lesson he asks for a private word with Yasha before they start. When they are alone in her room, he makes a glass jar filled with an amber liquid appear from thin air and hands it to her. “One teaspoon every twelve hours should make your throat stop stinging, and it will also numb it. It doesn’t make the pain disappear entirely, I’m afraid, but it helps.”

It sounds like he is speaking from experience, but Yasha does not have it in her to pry. She doesn’t think he would give her a truthful answer anyway. “Thank you.”

He makes to leave, but she stops him with a hand on his elbow.

“I’ll think about it, I really will.” She bites her lip. “You are right. I don’t want to hurt them.”

Essek smiles, a bit surprised. “Message me when you have an answer. There is also palliative care that can be provided, if it gets worse. Keep it in mind.”

She nods. She hopes she won’t need it any time soon; hopefully she still has time to meditate on her decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should mention I'm playing around a bit with the rules of Hanahaki. I've seen different fics where there is a surgery you can get to get rid of the feelings, but sometimes it makes you forget the person, and sometimes just the feelings, and sometimes it makes you incapable of feeling anything for that person anymore. I think that Yasha would have heard about the surgery, but the people of her tribe wouldn't have had direct access to it, so she only heard of its effects through rumors. Essek has a better idea, because they have better health care in Rosohna than in the Iothia Moorlands.  
> Also, in my fic you only get Hanahaki for unrequited love that you feel especially guilty about, when you're telling youself that you shouldn't have these feelings, for whatever internal or external reason.


	3. Chapter 3

_One day, as they were hunting, they stopped to rest near a stream. Zuala was winded, her lungs too full with plant matter to keep up the pace. Luckily, nobody else was with them, so Yasha had no problem yielding when her friend pleaded for a stop. Zuala walked to the shore and crouched, plunging her hands into the water and bringing it to her lips. The setting sun turned everything a warm golden color, the water reflecting its dancing lights to her beautiful face._

_Yasha coughed, then, and something came with it, something small and yellow like the sun on the plains. She looked numbly at the proof of her own stupidity, and crushed it under her boot before her friend could see it._

_Some things were best left unspoken._

***

The Mighty Nein have been coming and going from the Empire to Rosohna, trying to mediate the conflict. It has been challenging. They have found themselves wholly unprepared for the task, especially Yasha, but Beau… Beau is thriving. It is a wonder, to see how competent she is, how confident she sounds while speaking to Kings and dignitaries, how she is earning the respect and the favor of everyone from the head of the Academy to the teenagers at the cottage. It is a delight to see, even if it brings petals to her lips. Yasha tries to stifle the thoughts that have been plaguing her (that if she had let her in earlier, if she had answered to her flirting instead of keeping quiet, if, if, if… if the window of opportunity hadn’t closed), and reflects on how much the monk has changed.

However, not all the changes have been good. There’s an unspoken tension between them now, wholly different from the teasing, flirtatious one that existed before. Beau had looked at her like she was the sun, under the cathedral, when they had had a moment to breathe, after Yasha was finally, blessedly free. She has no doubts that Beau was happy to see her, but now she seems to avoid her eyes, or being alone with her altogether. Yasha can hardly blame her; after all, she had nearly killed her with Skingorger. Maybe she needs time. ~~~~

It’s now been two weeks since she escaped from Obann’s control, and the illness hasn’t progressed too far; still just petals, although they come in multiples instead of one by one. The Empire and the Dynasty have finally agreed on a place and day for the peace talks, and the Mighty Nein have a few days to relax at home while each party readies the security measures necessary for the summit.

It’s a nice morning. There’s no sun under Rosohna’s eternally dark sky, but the air is pleasantly warm, and the air smells of cinnamon. Caduceus has been trying his hand at baking, to Jester’s delight, and today he is attempting to recreate some spiced muffins that he remembers his mother making when he was a child. He doesn’t have the recipe, so it’s been a matter of trial an error, but the results have so far been delicious –at least according to Jester, his favorite guinea pig. Yasha is on her way to snatch one from the latest batch, when she notices that the door to the War Room is open. She pokes her head in, and what she sees makes her heart stutter.

It’s Jester and Beau. Kissing.

They haven’t heard her, and they don’t see her standing at the door, paralyzed, because their eyes are closed. They are clearly engrossed with each other, bodies close and arms pulling closer. Jester’s tail is wrapped around Beau’s thigh; Beau’s hands are cradling Jester’s face like it’s the most precious thing in the world. Beau pushes her against the wall and slides one leg between the tiefling’s, making Jester whimper.

Something grows in Yasha’s lungs; her chest has been bothering her, but now she can actually feel the roots digging deep, and the pain is excruciating. She is torn between the sudden pain, the alluring picture that they make together, the jealousy and envy and sheer desire to be in any of their places, the joy that they have figured it out and will make each other happy. It all swirls in her head, making her dizzy.

But what overwhelms her is the imperious need to cough.

Luckily she manages to get away without making a sound while something big and angry fights to get out of her chest, and she starts coughing as she reaches her room. She slams the door behind her and falls to her knees, gasping for breath, clawing at her own throat. She retches; blossoms fall from her mouth bloody. It’s the first time she has gotten a flower, and she can’t help but feel a wave of empathy for Zuala, who she had seen cough up so many. She knew it would be painful, but as her chest contracts and she coughs up again and again, she finds herself begging the Stormlord for a swifter death.

When it finally ends, in front of her are six of flowers, three white roses and (now that she can see the complete blossoms, she recognizes them) three baby blue forget-me-nots.

She lies on the floor next to the mess, too exhausted to do anything else. Although the main agony has ended, she struggles to breathe, and she swears she can feel full bushes inside her chest, reducing her lung’s capacity by a lot. She’s not getting enough oxygen. Essek’s offer pops into her mind, unbidden, but she doesn’t want to even consider it. She has been thinking about it these past weeks, as she promised, but she doesn’t feel capable of going through with it. Jester would be heartbroken, if Yasha stopped being her friend for apparently no reason, and Beau…

Who knows what Beau would think? But she wouldn’t be happy about it. She would see it as abandonment. Yasha can’t do that to her.

 _How would it be any different if you die?_ a treacherous voice, that sounds remarkably like Essek’s, asks in her head, but she ignores it. She has more immediate problems; mainly, what to do with the mess on the ground. She’s been in her room for a long time; someone is bound to notice her absence soon enough, and they might come prying.

Slowly, she gets on her knees, picks up the fallen flowers and stands up wobbly like a newborn fawn as she cradles them in her arms. She has a feverish, stray thought about bringing them to Caduceus for tea. She shakes her head, dismissing the idea as unhygienic, and throws them in the waste basket instead. She gets a damp rag to scrub out the now partially dry droplets of blood from the floor, and washes the rag clean after.

She sits on her bed and looks at the flowers painted in her wall, tries to find the hidden dick to distract herself. It does nothing for the pain in her chest and throat, and after a while she is forced to look away, fearing that it will only cause a repeat of her early attack. But then there’s nothing to distract her thoughts from the image that is burned into her retinas, of Jester melting in Beau’s arms, of Beau sneaking a hand under–

She stands up too fast, and her head spins. She pinches her arm to stay in the moment and decides to take a bath. It might help alleviate some of the pain radiating from her chest and throat. She walks out of her room, stepping noisily as she passes in front of the War Room’s door to announce her presence, without stopping to look if her friends are still in there, and goes to knock on Caleb’s door.

“I need your help warming up the bath water,” she rasps as he opens the door.

Caleb looks alarmed when he hears her. “What happened to your voice?”

“I’ve got the flu,” the lie comes easily to her lips. It’s one of the many Zuala had used, once upon a time.

He nods, but doesn’t seem convinced. He dithers, fiddling with the edge of his sleeve. “Do you want me to get Jester?”

She closes her eyes, contains a wave of nausea. “Just help me with the bath, please.”

“Of course,” he says, voice low, and he follows her downstairs.

They fill the tub with water and Caleb begins a spell to warm it up as she sheds her clothes. Her movements are slow and awkward, her whole body is radiating with pain. She can see him looking at her from the corner of his eye, his frown growing concerned. He offers a hand for support when she climbs into the tub, and she takes it, too tired for shame. As she sinks into the water, she lets out a contented sigh. Caleb holds her hand for longer than necessary, reluctant to let go.

“Can I help you with anything else?” he asks, solicitous. He squeezes her hand and lets go of it at last. “I might take a bath myself, if you need company.”

“I’m okay, thank you, Caleb,” she replies, closing her eyes to avoid his worried look. She hears him step away after a moment of hesitation, and she calls out to him. “Actually, whenever you see Essek, could you tell him I want to talk to him?” She wants to ask if it’s okay for her to increase the dose of the pain potion, but she can’t tell Caleb that.

“ _Ja_ , no problem.” He reaches the door and leaves, closing it behind him.

Yasha opens her eyes and looks at the ceiling, to the tree roots piercing through. The room is humid, and it smells like damp earth and rotten vegetation; not what she needs right now. She reaches to her left, where the bath salts are kept on a little shelf, and selects the one tagged “Eucalyptus” by Jester’s careful script. She pours a small handful of the salts into the bath, and soon the aroma envelopes the room. Down here, the sounds of the busy house only reach her muffled; all she can hear is the dripping of the water from where it sloshed the edge when she sat down, and her own movements as she brings her knees close to her chest and hugs them. She rests her head on them and closes her eyes, taking stock of her condition. It’s not good. It hurts to attempt to take anything more than a shallow breath, as if her lungs were full of knives, vibrating when she takes air in or out. She wonders if that’s normal, or if the thorns from Beau’s rosebush are creating that effect.

Nevertheless, the eucalyptus helps open her airways a little, as does the warmth and steam from the water itself. She washes her body mechanically, trying not to make sudden movements; her ribs are bruised from the heavy coughing. After some consideration, she casts Healing Hands on herself, but it doesn’t make much of a dent in her discomfort.

There is a small sliver of panic making itself known in the back of her mind. The sudden worsening of her condition frightens her; she had thought she would have more time, that it would be more gradual. It makes sense, what with…what she saw today, but it’s still a very fast progression. And the worst part is that it will be nearly impossible to hide from the rest of the group. She thinks of Caleb’s concerned look, and his gentle prodding; soon she will be fending off similar questions from everybody else. Up until now she has been coughing petals into a handkerchief, and no one has noticed. How can she hide full blossoms coming out of her mouth, or the sound of her hacking coughs? This flare up had been so much rougher, making her retch and sputter, doubled over. Even if she keeps her eye out for it, the only way to hide this now would be to run into another room, and that is bound to be noticed quickly. It doesn’t matter that they don’t know what it is; seeing someone vomit flowers would get anybody’s attention.

She’s still mulling over fatalistic thoughts of discovery when someone comes thundering down the stairs. She doesn’t need to open her eyes to recognize Jester’s indelicate pitter-patter of excitement. The tiefling runs to the side of the tub and throws her arms around Yasha from behind. The crushing pressure around her shoulders makes her grunt.

“You’re never going to guess what just happened!” Jester squeals into her ear.

Yasha smiles and brings up her hands to loosen Jester’s arms, and just to hold them, too. She tries to keep the sadness out of her words when she says, “Beau kissed you.”

“Almost!” she yells. “Wait, how did you know?”

“I saw you two in the War Room.” She tries not to make it sound like an accusation. The memory itself, brought to the forefront of her mind, makes her cough; thankfully no flowers come up yet, but she can taste the blood in her mouth. She swallows it and clears her throat.

Jester tuts in her ear. “Well, you didn’t see everything. _I_ kissed _her_.”

Yasha raises her eyebrows, surprised and a little impressed.

“But she took the first step, you know.” She sighs dreamily. “It was very brave of her. She took me to the War Room and told me she had something to say; that she is in love with me and is tired of hiding it, and that I had no obligation to feel the same or whatever but that she knew that she had been hurting me with her attitude, and that she mostly wanted to explain herself. She was rambling at this point and insisting a lot that she knew that I don’t feel the same way so I kissed her to shut her up, and it worked! She’s a REALLY good kisser. Like really really. I mean I know she has had a lot of practice and I have zero, but still.”

Yasha feels knives in her lungs, up her bronchus, into her windpipe. She starts coughing up, unable to stop it, and she knows there will be a lot of flowers, and it will be impossible to hide, and…

Warm magic runs through her torso and neck, and the urge subsides. The blossoms in her throat disappear, and even though the plants in her chest are still in here, they seem to have shrunk considerably. She takes a deep breath and it feels like she has enough air for the first time in hours.

“Oh my gods, Yasha, are you sick? You should have said something!”

She’s high on oxygen, and Jester’s words, high-pitched with concern, barely make any sense to her ears. “What…?”

“I casted Lesser Restoration on you.”

The aasimar takes a few more deep breaths, relishing the air entering her system. “Thanks a lot, Jes.” She feels some of her strength return. “Um, it’s nothing, I think I have the flu.”

“Hm.” She tilts Yasha’s head back a little, kisses her forehead to test for fever. It makes Yasha shudder. “I’ll go ask Caduceus if he has some ginger tea.” She starts to pull away, but Yasha holds her gently in place.

“You kissed her.” She tries to detach herself from the words, make them hollow of meaning, just a neutral collection of sounds. “What then?”

“We just kissed for a bit.” She blushes slightly, and Yasha wonders with a stab of pain if that’s all they really did. “Then she asked me to be her girlfriend, and I said yes!” Her voice rises with the last word, almost hurting Yasha’s ears.

Yasha smiles. There’s an ache in her chest that has nothing to do with the flowers, or maybe it has everything to do with them. “I’m really happy for you two.” She means it.

Jester kisses her cheek. “Stay here. I’m gonna bring you some tea and a muffin, and then I’m going to give you a massage. Give you the full spa treatment.”

“You don’t have to…”

“Yasha.” Jester steps away, and turns Yasha’s head with her hand so that they’re looking in each other’s eyes. “You’re sick. That means I get to spoil you, and you don’t complain. Doctor’s orders.”

Yasha smiles bashfully, hopes that the tiefling attributes her blush to the warmth of the bath. “Okay.”

“I’ll be right back.” She bounds up the stairs.

Yasha coughs up one of the small blue flowers. She washes the blood from it in the bath and tosses it into a shaded corner.

\---

She feels better after letting Jester pamper her. She tells herself there’s no harm in indulging a little. The ache in her chest disagrees, but she tells it to shut it, because isolating herself would probably do the same damage, if only because it would upset Jester and that was a surefire way of making things worse. At least her mood no longer feels as apocalyptic as it did after seeing them together, which is an improvement. It proves to be short-lived, because it plummets again when she finds Beau leaning against her bedroom door, arms crossed, obviously waiting for her.

Beau stands up straighter when she sees her, her arms falling to the sides. For a second she looks at Yasha with a mix of guilt and regret, and even longing. The expression disappears as Beau gets herself under control, and a mask of neutrality replaces it. Her mouth is set, lips tight, and her chin is raised as if she were bracing herself for a fight. She wants to _talk_. Yasha would rather go back to the bath and drown herself.

They look at each other somberly for about a minute. _This would be easier if she wasn’t so goddamn attractive_ , thinks Yasha, then bats at the thought with an imaginary hand. _Behave_ , she tells her hindbrain.

“We’re cool, right?” Beau suddenly bursts out. She’s trying to sound conciliatory, confident, like this is just a formality, but there is a minuscule wobble of anxiety in her voice.

 _Maybe I could deck her. Would that make me feel better?_ Yasha wonders. _Would that make_ her _feel better?_ She tries to contort her mouth into a reassuring smile. “Yeah. We’re cool.” It comes out fake, too happy and upbeat.

It doesn’t fool Beau. She clenches her fists, brows pinching. “Look…”

“Jester is very happy,” Yasha interrupts her, still in the same, fake-sugary tone that she can’t seem to get rid of, “are you happy?”

“Yes.” Her grim face and strained voice seem to contradict her answer.

Yasha shrugs. “Keep it that way, then.” _Keep her happy, and yourself_. It’s a threat. She doesn’t know what she’ll do, if after the agony they are unwittingly putting her through, they aren’t happy. She also wants this awkward conversation to be over, because she needs to go to her room, needs to close the door behind her so she can puke up a white rose in peace. She can feel it in her chest already, but Beau is still standing in her way, her mouth set determinately.

“Yasha, are you okay?”

She doesn’t say “about this”, but Yasha hears it anyway. She pretends to misunderstand. She coughs a little, and hides the blood that comes up behind a closed-lip smile. “I have the flu, so I’m not feeling my best. I just need some rest.”

Beau sighs, her shoulders dropping, and steps aside. “Let me know if you need anything. Or if you want to talk.”

Yasha nods. “Goodnight, Beau.”

“Good night.”

The coughing starts in full force as she closes the door. If Beau hears it as she’s walking down the hallway, she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t see the rose that Yasha crumples in her fist.


	4. Chapter 4

_Zuala’s condition was caught shortly after; there was no way of hiding her rapid decline. Yasha was scolded for abetting her behavior, and was banned from the sick tent to which Zuala had been exiled. She was coughing up full flowers, now, according to her father’s whispered reports, out of earshot from her mother. The agony might last still a month, maybe more._

_Yasha fought. She sneaked into the tent when the others were sleeping, got dragged away the few times she was caught. She demanded her tribe leader for permission to bring Zuala to the City of Beasts, Asarius, so that she may receive the treatment that could save her life. After all, Zuala was destined to great things, everyone had said so._

_“That was before that weakness showed,” Yasha’s mother chastised her. “Now that she has the disease, she’s not good to anyone.”_

***

Essek knocks on her door not even two days later. She flops out of bed; she has been spending a lot of time in her room lately, trying to avoid the two lovebirds. Being sick has been a good excuse, and it has even gotten her some ginger cookies from a sympathetic Caduceus. She sniffs under her armpit, and doesn’t judge her own smell to be too pungent, but she opens the window to try and get rid of the rancid air in the room. Then she opens the door to allow the Shadowhand to float in. He looks as prim and composed as always, not a hair out of place, unwrinkled mantle hiding his body. It’s difficult to tell what he’s thinking, but his cold gaze examines her thoroughly, measuring the circles under her eyes, her hunched position, the crisped hands. She doesn’t bother to hide the rattle in her breath.

“Have you given any more thought to it?” he asks, forsaking any greetings. There is an urgency to it, as if he’s just waiting for her permission to whisk her away into the nearest healing facility.

“Yes. No.” She shakes her head to clear it. “I asked you to come because I wanted to know if it would be safe to up the dose.”

The color flees from his face. “How much worse is it?”

Yasha sits on the bed, her legs too weak to support her for long. “Full flowers, several at a time.”

There is a soft thud as Essek’s levitation spell fades and he drops to the floor. “That was fast,” he says in a strangled voice.

It has been hard. Jester and Beau are attached at the hip, orbiting each other with stars in their eyes, and touching, always touching; a peck on the lips, on the cheek, a touch to the waist, a hand on the back, an arm around the shoulders, and all of it makes the plants in Yasha’s lungs grow, and brings up the cough. If Jester sees it, she casts Lesser Restoration on her, which withers the flowers slightly, but soon they come back with a vengeance. It’s a race between the spells and the disease, but there’s no doubt which one will be victorious.

She is glad to see them so happy, but she was gladder when Caleb complained about the PDA and asked them to keep it kid friendly around the group. Beau accused him of being homophobic, and Caleb threw a muffin at her head, which she caught easily and fed to Jester. If he threw a worried glance at Yasha while this conversation went down, neither of them mentioned it.

Essek seems to struggle with what he wants to say, and eventually his face becomes neutral, and his tone matter-of-fact. “So is it Jester or Beau?”

Yasha sits up from her hunched position, feeling as if she has been slapped. “How did you…”

“Jester sent me a message after it happened. Her excitement made it…” his mouth curves in an amused smirk, “barely intelligible, but she clarified things when she saw me today.” He grows serious again. “I’m assuming that is what accelerated things.”

A sudden bout of coughing makes Yasha double over. Essek quickly approaches her, sitting next to her and giving her strong slaps on the back. They help dislodge a large rose. It’s not as difficult to expel a smaller flower next, but it’s almost completely covered in blood.

Essek keeps his hand on Yasha’s back, rubbing it absent-mindedly. She’s not sure he’s even aware of it; his eyes linger on the flowers, and he’s making no efforts to conceal his worry.

He clears his throat. His voice is hollow when he guesses, “Both of them, then.”

She nods.

“Two recipients might make the disease progress faster. I will look into it.” He takes the hand away, and seems to compose himself, standing up. “Two drops every eight hours. The maximum dose is two drops every six hours, but keep in mind that it can be combined with healing spells or simple restorative potions to heal the lacerations in your throat. And don’t exert yourself,” his eyes turn to steel. “No running, fighting, nor training. You are probably not getting enough oxygen in your body for _any_ kind of physical activity.”

Yasha picks up the flowers and throws them in the waste basket; soon it will overflow. She has to think of a way to dispose of them covertly, so that nobody in the house will see it. “Thank you.”

His face softens. “I think you should talk to someone about this.” His voice sounds unsure, and he shrugs when Yasha sends him a skeptical look. “It’s what the healers would tell you. You have more friends other than those two.”

Yes, she does. But Jester and Beau are her best friends. She stops that thought before her lungs can hear it, and shrugs.

Essek sighs. “I’ll come back to check on you, then.”

She lowers her head. “You don’t have to.” There’s a knot at the back of her throat, and she can’t cough this one up.

“You’re still a hero of the Dynasty,” he smirks, his voice mockingly grandiose. “You’re under my care by orders of the Bright Queen. I’m just doing my job.”

It’s plausible deniability. He can’t be seen getting too attached. Yasha is a bit confused by it for a moment, but then she understands. “You are very competent, then,” she acknowledges in the same tone.

He makes a little bow, making her laugh. His smirk turns more genuine. “Take care. I’ll see you in a few days.”

He reactivates his levitation spell, and is about to float away when Caduceus comes through the door.

“Oh, hello Essek,” he smiles kindly at him, and Essek gives him back a nod and a curt smile. Caduceus turns to Yasha. “We’re leaving for the Rexxentrum now. Are you good enough to travel?”

Yasha stands up, trying not to wince too much. “Sure.”

Essek glares daggers at her from behind Caduceus.

“It’s okay if you want to stay,” Caduceus tells her kindly as he puts a hand on her forehead to check for fever. He seems satisfied when he doesn’t find it.

“It will be a lot of talking, right? I can just…stand there and look menacing while the others talk, it shouldn’t take too much out of me.”

Caduceus chuckles. Essek hides his frown as the firbolg turn towards the door, but his face remains serious. “Don’t let her overexert herself,” he warns him, and leaves without a goodbye.

“Wow, Essek has warmed up to you a lot, hasn’t he? That’s nice.”

Yasha nods, a tight-lipped smile on her face. She hopes it won’t be that bad. She can handle a bit of standing around.

\---

As it turns out, standing around is not all that she ends up doing during their trip. The moment they step into the Teleportation room of the Cobalt Soul, Yasha can see the bloodied bodies of the guards on the floor, and hear the eerie silence that permeates the usually lively room. Before she can open her mouth to shout a warning, though, they are attacked by a barrage of spells and projectiles. Caleb looks at the people attacking them and blanches.

“Scourgers!” he shouts. They’ve walked right into an ambush.

They spring into action, but things are looking dire; none of their magic users has prepared their spells thinking of a battle. Thankfully, Caleb’s paranoia means he at least had readied his web of fire, and five tongues of flames seize all of their enemies. The smell of burnt flesh and their cries fill the room, but the damage is not nearly enough to knock them down.

Jester and Nott team up against a young Halfling man in the corner of the room who is shooting deathly-looking rays from his hands; Nott sticks three precise bolts in his chest and Jester whacks him with a serrated lollipop until he stops moving. Fjord runs in the opposite direction with Star Razor raised high, towards the half-elf girl wielding a bow with poisoned arrows; he shoots her a couple of Eldritch Blasts when he realizes he cannot get to her before she can reload. Beau turns into a blue blur, almost flying across the room to lay blow after blow on an unlucky human boy, barely out of his teens, whose muscles seize up after the first attack. Caduceus commands a mean-looking dragonborn to drop her crossbow and walk out of the room and then turns invisible, his unseen steps leading him to the nearest wall he can press his back against.

Yasha goes into a rage and runs after the last one, a human woman, delivering a massive slash that cuts her arm clean off at the elbow. The scourger cries in pain, but manages to avoid a second strike. She turns tail and runs, blood dripping from her stump, and Yasha follows, keeping pace despite the ache in her limbs and the lack of air in her lungs; she can’t keep this up for long, so she better kill her fast. The scourger blindly casts a spell back at her, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect on Yasha. She catches up with her easily and impales her on Skingorger, but it’s not enough to finish her off; she manages to throw a spell towards someone at Yasha’s back. The aasimar doesn’t see who it hits, but a second later she hears Jester’s voice ring out, shrieking “Caleb!” with despair.

She sees red, her anger multiplying, and she attacks recklessly, pulling her sword out of the scourger’s chest and slashing at her again and again, until she’s just a shapeless, bloody mass on the ground. She turns around, assesses the field; Caleb is on the ground, with Jester above him, delivering healing magic. Fjord and Beau are engaged in combat, each with a different enemy. Caduceus is nowhere to be seen, which means he might be safe. The dragonborn has her crossbow back and seems ready to attack Jester, but Nott is shooting bolt after bolt at her hands, until she drops it again.

The one closest to Yasha is Beau, so she runs to her aid, but after two seconds her vision starts to go dark around the edges. She doesn’t stop. She can barely see by the time she reaches them, but she musters enough strength to lift her massive sword once more and slash the boy right across his back. She wants to go for a second blow, but the weapon slips free from her suddenly stiff fingers. She knows she is breathing, but it’s not enough, she’s suffocating; her limbs are cold and she can barely feel them. Then she’s falling, and she loses consciousness before she hits the ground.


	5. Chapter 5

_That night, sitting in Zuala’s bed, holding her hair back as she retched (and trying to contain her own damnable coughs), she whispered to Zuala her plans for escape._

_“I could bring you to a healer,” she fervently promised, “I can hunt to get the coin. We can cut it off.”_

_“No,” Zuala gasped, “let it kill me.”_

_“What good will it do?” she spat at her, voice thick with worry._

_“I will not forget them to save my own life. That would be even weaker.”_

_That pride was going to be the death of her. Yasha hid her own cough, didn’t mention how she needed the operation, too, how Zuala’s death would take her as well in the end. If Zuala could hold fast in her love, for whoever it was, then Yasha could as well. It was almost romantic, in a way._

_Her mother wouldn’t approve of that thought._

***

Unsurprisingly, what wakes her is the need to cough. She is wrenched out of sleep by the violence of her lungs contracting, choking her, and she sits up on the bed at a record speed. All she can think about are flowers, she sees them around her, jumping at her from the walls, jumping out of her from her mouth. She barely has time to bend over the edge of the bed before they come pouring out, a mess of blood and vegetation cascading from her mouth onto the floor and onto a pair of boots that jump out of the way.

“ _Was zum Teufel?!_ ”

When the agony is over, she takes a deep breath, or as deep as she can these days, which isn’t much. Slowly, her surroundings become clear to her; she’s in her bed, in the Xhorhaus. The flowers that she saw around her are the ones decorating her walls, the ones that Jester painted for her. She can smell a waft of vanilla in the air. Someone has stripped her of her boots, her bracers, and her coat, and her sword is propped up against the wall near her bed. The person who jumped out of the way is Caleb.

She looks up. His gaze leaps from the flowers to her face, frantic; his hands are up, as if ready to cast a spell, and they’re shaking a little. His eyes and mouth are wide open with horror.

 _Shit_. “I’m sorry,” she rasps, her voice rough, and she winces immediately at how much it hurts to talk. She brings a hand to her throat and casts Healing Hands; it doesn’t do much for the pain, but she can feel some of the wounds healing. She fumbles with the drawer on the bedside table for the jar that Essek gave her. She doesn’t even bother measuring the liquid, uncaring of how long ago she took her last dose, and just takes one big swig from it. The fog in her brain dissipates a little when the pain is dulled to a much more manageable level.

Caleb finds his voice at last. “What is going on?”

“I’m fine,” she answers automatically.

“You are most definitely not. You collapsed without being hit once. And this…” he looks at the flowers, gets stuck on them for a moment, speechless. “I am going to get Jester,” he says at last.

“No!” she tries to get out of the bed to stop him, but stops when her head pounds at the movement. She sits back down.

He freezes halfway to the door, and turns to look at her, face pleading. “Why not? You need help, and I cannot provide it.”

He looks scared and out of his depth; she knows that nothing she could say will stop him. Except, perhaps, the truth. _Talk to someone_ , Essek voice echoes in her head.

She keeps her voice controlled and steady, but she can’t take the sadness out of it. “She can’t help me, because I have Hanahaki disease.”

As she suspected, he is unfamiliar with it, but he sits back to the chair next to her bed, where he had been keeping watch over her sleeping form, ready to listen. She explains, information disjointed as it comes out of her; her symptoms, who is it over, why it happens, what is the prognosis if she doesn’t do anything about it, Essek’s help. At some point during the explanation, Caleb grabs her hand, holding it as she pours her heart out. It’s more relieving than she expected, and she feels a weight lift off her shoulders, now that he knows. It’s one less person she will have to lie to, someone she can go to when it gets too hard.

There is a long silence after she finishes. He plays with her hand, rubbing circles on her palm, not looking at her. She expects him to tell her to confess her feelings, or urge to get her the surgery. But when he finally speaks, he doesn’t say any of those things.

“What do you want to do about it?”

It’s a logical question, but she doesn’t have an answer for it. She has been putting off making a final decision, procrastinating away what could be her final days, because she’s too scared of any of her options, of what she’ll lose whatever she decides. Yes, she has been considering the procedure, as Essek asked her. She looks up at Caleb; the concern on his face is another reason to go through with it. But it’s not enough.

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet,” she answers truthfully.

He sighs, a pained, pitying smile on his face. “You will need to decide soon,” he remarks, almost in a whisper. His voice is choked with emotion.

“I know.” She squeezes his hand. “Will you…” she hesitates, “will you keep it a secret?”

The look he gives her is devastating, but he nods, pressing his lips together. “ _Ja_ , if that is what you want.”

Yasha leans back on the bed, closing her eyes. “Thank you.”

Caleb releases her hand and stands up. “I have to go tell the others that you woke up. Do you…” he bites his lip. “Would it hurt you, to see them right now? I can tell Caduceus to come instead. He is…relaxing. Has the right energy, to be with someone who is healing. What would you prefer?”

Yasha looks at the mess on the floor, counts the flowers. Caleb follows her gaze and gets rid of it with prestidigitation. Despite the deep pain in her chest, she wants to see them so badly. She frowns, calculating. “There were a lot of them…I think it will take a while for them to grow back. Unless they have like, gotten engaged while I was unconscious and they tell me when they come in, I think I’ll be okay.”

Caleb laughs despite himself, and gives her one last pained look before leaving.

She lies back on the bed, curling into a ball, and takes stock of her condition, taking careful, measured breaths, and paying attention to how the air moves inside of her, how full her lungs are. It doesn’t feel like the plants have grown since the last time she checked; most likely, it was merely her now chronic lack of oxygen what caused her loss of consciousness. When Essek finds out, he’s going to let her have it.

Her musings are interrupted by the sound of people running up the stairs. A second later, Beau and Jester burst through the door with twin looks of concern.

“Yasha!” Jester cries, and climbs into the bed to give her a big hug.

To her surprise, Beau approaches from the other side, albeit more slowly, and climbs in as well. She doesn’t say anything, just hugs her and hides her face in Yasha’s neck. She finds herself speechless, stuck between their embrace, unable to do anything but hug them back. She waits for the flowers to come forth, for the pain to amplify until it becomes unbearable, but…

“You are not going to fight anything larger than a terrier until you are cured. It was stupid, I don’t know how I let you convince me that you were okay enough to come in the first place,” Jester complains, words muffled against Yasha’s cheek. “You could have been very hurt.”

“I’ve gone down before, it’s fine,” she replies, trying to sound reassuring. “I knew you were there to bring me back up.” She’s still waiting for the pain to hit, tensing her muscles to brace for it, but it doesn’t come.

Jester whimpers. “But I didn’t. I healed you and you didn’t wake up. You were breathing funny. We had to drag you back through the circle, and Essek had to float your body back home.”

Oh. Essek knows already. She’s mildly surprised she hasn’t woken up having undergone the procedure already, after she disobeyed his direct instructions. _He isn’t like that, he would wait for my permission_ , she chastises herself. When has she become so used to people controlling her that she just expects her friends to violate her bodily autonomy?

She gets pulled away from these dark thoughts by Beau speaking up unexpectedly. “Don’t do that again,” she mumbles, the hot breath against her neck making Yasha’s heart speed up a bit. “You’re on bed rest until you’re completely cured, and that’s it.”

She sounds annoyed, angry, like she’s speaking from behind gritted teeth. _She’s scared_ , Yasha realizes, and a wave of fondness washes over her. She braces once more for agony to envelope her, but it doesn’t happen. She looks down to the two women embracing her, Beau deathly still, Jester shaking a bit, digging her fingers on Yasha’s flesh as if to make sure that she was still there with her, and suddenly she understands. She feels loved by them, that’s why the blossoms aren’t triggered. Their love for her isn’t romantic, but they _do_ love her, they are here for her. Sadly, it’s not enough to cure her, but it seems enough to stall the disease for one night.

She’ll take it. She’ll take anything that they’re willing to give her. “I’ll do my best.”

It’s a lie. Doing her best would be to submit herself to the surgery, to empty her lungs and her heart by ripping these feelings out at the source. But as she lies there, cradled by them, loved by them, she knows she could never go through with it. She’d rather die than stop feeling this warmth for them.

But they believe her.

\---

A couple of days later she wakes up to the sight of Essek standing next to her bed with his arms crossed and glowering. He looks smaller than usual, somehow, and with a jolt she realizes that he is not wearing his usual mantle and his feet are firmly planted on the ground. Yasha can clearly see his determination, a certain tension in his body, like he’s readied himself for a fight. In her mind there’s little doubt about what he’s going to say.

“I have made an appointment at the healing center for this afternoon,” he announces in a tone that accepts no arguments.

She sits up, rubs the sleep from her eyes, and represses the urge to tell him to fuck off. This would be easier if Essek was an asshole, if he were trying to bend her will as Obann had. But no; he’s here, ready to convince her, to talk her into it, even if he could easily drag her there with a simple gravity spell. And he’s doing it because he cares about her, and about her friends. _Well-meaning fucker_. She sighs. “Thank you, but I have made my decision, and…”

“The appointment is for both of us,” he interrupts her, stunning her into silence.

He sighs and drops his arms to the sides. His cool demeanor shatters, almost as if he has taken off a physical mask. Under it Yasha can suddenly see the cracks; he looks exhausted, frayed, and so, so sad. His tiredness is like a mirror of her own, and she wonders how he manages to stand. “Take a seat, please,” she says, gesturing to the chair next to her bed.

He takes a seat and rests his elbows on his knees, covering his face with his hands. His breathing is irregular, like her own. How had she not noticed this sooner? How had he managed to hide it? Perhaps the disease had not progressed so far as hers, or he had somehow disguised his decline with spells. He definitely looks ragged now that he is allowing her to see his real condition. After a moment, he sits back, showing his face. His eyes are blood-shot, and there are deep circles under them. He traces a strange symbol in the air with his fingers, and something appears in his hand.

On his open palm there’s a single poppy, vibrant red, its petals wrinkled.

“ _Ethit_ ,” she swears in Celestial, the air rushing out from her.

“It was just petals before,” his voice is disbelieving, pleading. His eyes have a hundred-yard stare. “And then you all came back after being attacked.”

Yasha’s eyes, full of pity, are torn from the flower back to his face, but she’s speechless.

“I’ve been putting it off,” he continues, “telling myself that I could always deal with it when a full flower came, since I wouldn’t be too affected before that, right? Just a bit uncomfortable.” She knows from her own experience that he’s downplaying the effects of the illness, but she doesn’t call him out on it. “I have a duty to my country, my responsibilities are too great to be brought low by an infatuation like this. I can’t afford…” he takes a deep breath, “to be weak. Even if, even if he…” he’s interrupted by a cough, and they both tense up, but thankfully it’s not accompanied by another blossom. He lets out a dry bark of laughter, self-deprecating. “It’s irrational, and I’m very cross about it. It should be an easy decision. I care for my country much more than I care for Caleb.”

Yasha looks at the poppy again. Caleb. It suits him. She vaguely remembers Jester joking that Caleb would live out the plot from _The Courting of the Crick_. It seems much less funny in retrospect.

The words escape her mouth before she can stop them. “You should tell him.” She bites her tongue; this is the last thing she’d like to hear. She can’t imagine it is all that different for him.

“I think he has been through enough, wouldn’t you agree?” Essek’s face carefully closes off. “He told me what happened in Rexxentrum, and…some things, about his past, for context.” There’s a glimmer of undisguised rage in his eyes. He shakes his head minutely and shrugs, rubbing his forehead with one hand. “No need to burden him with more things he cannot change.”

She disagrees, but she knows she won’t convince him with her words alone; he would talk her under the table. He wouldn’t be sick if he didn’t think his feelings were hopeless, if he didn’t feel guilty for even entertaining the notion. There is only one person who could convince him, and although he is somewhere in the house, he is not in this room right now.

He pauses, takes a big breath, and stands up. “Come with me.”

“I don’t want to.”

He was ready for that answer, but not to accept it. He paces back and forth for a few moments, hands on his hips. He stops and turns to look at her with an intensity that seems out of place in his usually calm face. “Please.” It doesn’t look like it’s a word he uses often.

“Why are you doing this? Why do you care?” It comes out harsher than she intended, but she’s distracted, wracking her brains for a way to convince him to tell Caleb the truth.

Essek nods once. “I understand if it comes through as invasive…we’re not really friends.” It sounds like it pains him to say so. It certainly pains Yasha to hear it. “But I’d like us to be, that’s why I want you to survive.” He smirks, but his eyes are serious. “Since your actual friends have no idea what’s going on, someone has to step up and be the voice of reason.”

“I told Caleb. I did follow your advice.” She doesn’t want him to feel rejected. If she had more time, she’d like to become friends as well.

“Did it make you feel better?”

“Yes.”

“Then follow my other piece of advice.”

“No.”

Essek huffs, sitting back on the chair, hands crisped in frustration. “Why? What do you gain by dying?”

It slips out of her lips before she can stop it. “Atonement.” She looks down to her hands. “I was under Obann’s control for months. Twice. He made me…” she takes a shuddering breath, trying to contain a sudden wave of emotion, “he made me do terrible things, and…they are irreversible. I don’t…I don’t deserve to live.”

Essek inhales sharply. “Yasha, I…” He can’t continue.

“Don’t get me wrong, I would rather…dying is easy. I would rather do something else, something good, for the world, or for the Nein, or…I don’t know. It’s more than that. He made me into something I am not. He made me want to attack them, he made me…forget that I love them, I can’t…” She is hyperventilating. “I can’t do that again.”

There is a moment of silence between them as Essek ponders her words.

“I understand,” he says, defeated. “I won’t pester you any longer. But if you change your mind…”

“I’ll tell you. You have my word,” she promises.

They hold each other’s gaze for a long moment. Yasha gets her breath under control again, tries to think about anything other than the image of Beau impaled on Skingorger, Fjord asking her why, Jester crying her name. She’s startled out of the flashbacks when Essek gets up to leave.

“I don’t think you will notice a great change in me, next time we see each other. But if Caleb does…” he hesitates, “you can tell him what I did, since he’s familiar with the disease.”

 _Or I can tell him right now_ , she thinks. She nods, trying to not betray her thoughts, and he leaves the room.

Her mind is a whirlwind, but she focuses on the most urgent problem: stopping Essek. She could wait until one of her friends came by her room and then tell them to go fetch Caleb, but she’s not sure how long that will take, and she doesn’t have a lot of time. She considers screaming, but depending on where the others are, they might not hear her. No, she needs to go find either Caleb, or someone who can cast Sending to him. She waits, vibrating in her spot, until she can no longer hear Essek’s steps down the hallway, then gets out of bed. It’s the first time she has stood on her feet without assistance for a while, and her head spins, lights dancing in front of her eyes. She holds onto a bedpost until she feels steady enough to continue, taking a few slow steps until she reaches the door. As soon as she leaves her room she’s able to support herself by putting a hand on the wall, but her legs are still shaking, unstable. She strains her ears and can hear her friends saying their goodbyes to Essek and the sound of wind chimes as the front door opens and closes, so she picks up the pace minutely. She takes a steadying breath when she reaches the stairs, and she goes down too slowly for her taste. It leaves her winded, the edges of her vision starting to darken, but by the end of it Caleb is in her line of sight. She’s lucky she didn’t have to look too far, because her strength is already failing.

“Caleb,” she rasps, out of breath.

There’s a cry of dismay from Jester, who runs to her side and catches her before her knees collapse. She casts Lesser Restoration on her, and it’s the only reason she’s able to remain conscious.

“What is it?” Caleb is by her side in a second, expression grim, readying himself for the worse.

She’s breathless from the effort, but she manages to gets the words out. “He’s got it too, he’s spitting flowers.”

“What are you talking about?” Jester asks, but Yasha pays her no mind, focusing on the human instead.

“He’s on his way to have the procedure done.” She grabs Caleb’s wrist, tight enough to hurt. “You have to stop him.”

He seems lost. “Why?”

“They’re for you. Poppies. He told me himself.” Her sight starts spinning again, and she has to fight to stay conscious and to keep the blossoms down. “If you want him, you better run.”

Caleb’s eyes widen, and he nods. He doesn’t need to be told twice; he yanks his hand from her grip and runs out of the door, a hopeful expression on his face. Yasha lets the cough overtake her, and she retches bloody flowers all over the floor.

“What is happening? Why are you out of bed? You promised to…”

Yasha passes out before Jester can say anything else.


	6. Chapter 6

_She did spring her away in the end, but not to a healer. She didn’t want Zuala to die in the sick tent, amongst the incense and the rotting pelts; she carried her on her back to the mountain, so they could see the sun come up together one last time._

_Zuala was barely conscious anymore, but she fought to stay awake. They sat next to each other, facing the dawn. After a while, Yasha realized that Zuala was not looking at the horizon, but at her face._

_“You’re gonna miss it,” she joked, hoping Zuala couldn’t see the blush on her cheeks._

_“No,” she said softly, her voice wrecked, “I don’t think I will.”_

_Zuala had always been braver than her. She kissed Yasha as the sun broke over the horizon, and nothing, nothing, could have prepared her for the joy she felt at being healed._

***

This time she wakes up much more peacefully, to Caduceus petting her hair and her body still tingling with Melora’s magic. He smiles when her eyes flutter open, and bends over her to give her a kiss on the forehead, his pale pink hair tickling her face. He sits back up and brings a mug to her lips, tilting her head forward with his other hand. She drinks the warm liquid without protest, and the stinging in her throat immediately lessens.

“How are you feeling?” he asks in a deep rumble.

“I’ve been better.” She sits up on the bed and takes the mug from his hands, eager to drink more; her throat feels parched as well as raw. “How is everyone else?”

“Jester is sleeping. Despite my recommendations, she didn’t leave your side in over a day. Beau didn’t either, really, but at least she took some naps on the floor.” He sighs, tired. “They’re in a proper bed now, I hope. I promised to take care of you for them.”

Her heart clenches, and she starts heaving; Caduceus quickly puts a large bowl in her hands. Coughing up the flowers takes all of her wane strength, and she’s close to slipping into unconsciousness again. Caduceus’ hand on her back steadies her, and his healing magic keeps her awake. They both look at the flowers in the bowl.

“You were doing that in your sleep, too,” Caduceus comments with barely disguised strain, concern turning his words even softer. “We set you on your side because we were worried you might choke on them.”

She looks at him, biting her lip. “I’m sorry.” The apology seems much too small for all the trouble she’s putting them through.

He shrugs. “It hardly looks like it’s your fault.”

It’s her fault for catching feelings for the wrong people in the first place, but she doesn’t tell him that. She doesn’t want to even think about her situation. Caduceus hands her some water when she finishes the tea, and she drinks it avidly as well. She hears a little “mrrp” sound from the feet of her bed, and she finds Frumpkin staring at her with bright, yellow eyes. The details of what happened before she passed out this time come back to her in a rush.

“Caleb?” she asks anxiously.

“He got Essek in time. He looked very happy when he got home, until we told him how you were doing, of course. He said you could keep Frumpkin as long as you need.”

Guilt stabs her a bit more deeply at that. He deserves to be happy for once, to enjoy his new relationship with that hot drow boy without worrying about her. She presses the heel of her hand against her forehead, trying to rub away her mounting headache. The cat curls in a ball between her legs.

Caduceus sighs. “Does that come as a surprise, really? We are all worried about you. We care about you.” The hand that was tracing circles on her back comes up to rest on her shoulder, and she covers it with her own, gives it a squeeze. “Will you stay in bed now? Or do I have to tie you up?” Caduceus sounds stern, but there’s the ghost of a smile dancing on his lips.

She smiles back, shaking her head, although it would be funny to see him try to restrain her. Before she can say anything, though, Beau comes through the door.

Caduceus frowns. “Aren’t you supposed to be in bed, miss?”

Beau pays him absolutely no mind; she has frozen upon seeing Yasha awake. She shakes herself out of it, clenching her teeth, and walks to the other side of the bed, picking up the bowl from Yasha’s hand. Yasha can see that she’s exhausted too; there are huge circles under her eyes, and she moves with less nimbleness than usual. Her frown is deeply set, her anger barely contained, ready to explode. Yasha braces for the pain of it, even though she knows she probably deserves whatever Beau wants to say to her.

When she has emptied the bowl in the waste basket, she fixes Yasha with an accusatory stare. “You don’t have the fucking flu,” she spats out.

Yasha can’t hold her gaze. She drops her head and stares at her hands on her lap, clenches them into fists.

Before Beau can truly unleash her rage, Caduceus interrupts her. “Is it contagious? I need to know if we should be taking any precautions.” He turns to look at Beau. “Beauregard, I told you not to touch the flowers with your bare hands.”

“Fuck you.”

“No, you’re all safe,” Yasha says, alarmed, “I wouldn’t put you in danger like that, I would have left if that was the case.”

Her words seem to placate Caduceus, but they infuriate Beau. The veins on her neck are bulging, and her mouth twists into a snarl. “What? Would you just go lie somewhere, alone, and wait to die without even telling us?” Frumpkin startles out of his comfortable position and jumps to the floor, going as far away from Beau as he can without leaving the room.

“No, Beau, that’s not…” She feels the flowers poke her throat again, blocking her air flow.

“Why don’t you want us to be there for you, Yash? We’re your friends!” The bitterness is palpable in her voice.

“I didn’t want to worry you!” she pleads, half-choked, struggling to breathe. “There’s nothing to be done, and I didn’t want…”

She gets interrupted by Beau’s dry bark of laughter. “Are you incapable to stop lying?”

Yasha feels her insides turn to ice, a suspicion taking form in her mind. She coughs up a single white rose as Caduceus pats her back heavily, and takes up a gulp of air right after. She looks up at Beau, who seems even more inflamed when she sees the flower.

She grabs it, crushing it in her fist. “I know what that is. I know what causes it. And I know there’s a solution, one that you are refusing to take!” She throws the rose to the floor.

She must have been talking to Caleb. The thought chills her; what else has he said to her? But no, he wouldn’t betray her trust like that. He was probably forced to explain some of what was going on once the others saw the blossoms. Yasha puts away her fear of discovery for a moment. She bristles, a bit of her meekness slipping away. “A solution,” she scoffs, her voice turning hard, “do you know what it costs?”

Beau opens her mouth to reply, but all that comes out is a choked sound. Her anger burns out in a second, and she deflates, her imposing presence shrinking to the figure of a very small, very sad girl. There are tears in her eyes, and she drops to her knees next to the bed, grasping the front of Yasha’s shirt with both hands. “They’re not worth it, Yasha, whoever they are. They’re not worth your life.”

Yasha pulls her into her arms, presses her against her chest. She can hear her sniffle, and it breaks her heart all over again. But she has to explain, she has to make her understand. Maybe that will console her. “It’s worth keeping my mind. I would rather die than lose myself again. Don’t ask that of me, please…” There are tears in her eyes, too, and she can’t seem to blink them away.

Beau also wraps her arms around her. “It’s not the same, you…”

“Okay, that’s enough, Beauregard,” Caduceus warns from the side. “You’re upsetting my patient, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” His voice is gentle, but firm.

Beau pulls away from the hug and stares at him with narrowed eyes. “I’m going to wake up Jester, so Yasha becomes _her_ patient again, and she lets me do whatever I want.”

She winks at Yasha, who stifles a watery laugh, and walks out of the room stomping her feet.

“I can keep them out if you want,” Caduceus offers, some of his pettiness peeking from under his calm tone.

“It’s okay. It can’t hurt.” It _can_ hurt, and it probably will. But at this point, what is a little more pain?

A couple of minutes later, Beau comes back with Jester in tow. She’s still wearing her night gown, and she’s rubbing the sleep out of her eyes with her free hand. Her hair is a bit mussed, and it makes Yasha’s heart clench a little, but luckily no more flowers come up.

The tiefling goes up to Caduceus and gives him a big hug. “Thank you for taking such good care of her, you’re the best. Sorry Beau is being a grump.”

“Hey!”

“It’s my pleasure. And I can continue to do so, because you need to rest,” he reminds her, stern.

She scoffs, and it triggers a yawn. “No way. You know how boring it was, watching her sleep for that long? I need some Yasha time. That didn’t count as Yasha time. You gotta share her.” She turns to Yasha and winks at her.

Yasha can’t help but smile and blush a little.

“She needs…soup,” Beau says unconvincingly. “That’s what you give to sick people, right? You should go make her some soup, so she can recover faster.”

Caduceus expression turns into a disbelieving grimace. “That’s the best you can come up with? Soup?”

Beau is gearing herself to reply with something rude, but Yasha speaks up before she can. “I would like some soup, it sounds like a nice idea.” She gives Caduceus her best puppy eyes.

Caduceus turns to her with the same expression, then sighs, and gets up. “Whatever you want, miss Yasha. I’ll come back with some soup.”

“Thank you!” Jester yells as he leaves the room, and immediately jumps to sit at the foot of the bed with her legs crossed. Beau sits next to her in a similar position, a lazy smirk on her face, and Jester’s tail automatically curls around Beau’s waist. Frumpkin has slowly prowled back to the bed, and now he jumps on it to climb on Yasha’s shoulders, settling down as a furry, purring scarf.

“You two are so sneaky and astute,” Yasha deadpans, extracting a giggle from them.

“Hey, don’t knock it. It worked, right?” Beau points out.

“Caddy is too good for us.”

“Yeah, that he is.” Beau frowns. “I’ll go apologize later.”

“Yes, yes, whatever you say,” Jester dismisses them. “Let’s get down to business.” She sits up straight and folds her hands on her lap, trying to mimic what she considers to be a professional demeanor. “Caleb told me all about your condition, and as your personal physician, my recommendation is that you go through the surgery.”

Yasha sighs, already tired of the same request. “No.”

Jester cocks her head. “Plan B, then.” She fixes her with an intense stare. “You confess your feelings to whoever is causing you all this pain, and we know that they will love you back because you’re an amazing catch and anyone would be delighted to have you,” she blurts out without pausing to breathe.

“Oh,” Yasha blinks several times, wide-eyed and innocent, “I hadn’t considered that.”

“Really?” exclaims Beau.

“No, she’s fucking with us,” Jester huffs, annoyed. “Ok. It’s stupid, but let’s say you’re right, and they _are_ colossally stupid. Plan B.1: we _make_ them love you. Use Command to make them fall in love with you, or use a love potion. Remember that creepy shopkeeper in Rexxentrum? I’m sure she has one. The only problem is getting back into the heart of the Empire without getting murdalized…”

“That doesn’t sound very ethical,” Beau points out, looking at her girlfriend with a tinge of fear in her eyes.

“Ethics walked out the door with Caduceus,” Jester dismisses her, matter-of-fact. “Isn’t that why you called me in here?”

“I wouldn’t want that,” Yasha says, cutting off Beau’s reply. “Besides, I don’t think that would work. I’m pretty sure it has to be genuine for it to have any real effect.”

Beau starts unwinding the bandages on her right arm, fiddling with them as she thinks. She looks at her closed fist. “I could beat them up. I could make them love you with my fists,” she suggests, dead serious.

Jester hits her knee with her hand and points at her. “Now you’re talking!” she cries out.

“Please don’t beat anyone up for me,” Yasha says half-heartedly. It would be really hot if Beau beat someone up for her, but it definitely won’t solve the situation at hand.

“We’ll have to keep thinking, then.” Jester goes through all of her gown’s pockets until she finds a lollypop. “There you go, for my favorite patient.”

Yasha accepts it with a smile and a twitch from the plants inside of her. As she is putting it in her mouth, Jester speaks up again.

“Of course, we can always go with plan C.”

“What’s plan C?” she asks, and it comes a little garbled around the sweet in her mouth.

“We drug you asleep with candy, truss you up like a chicken and carry you to one of those healing centers that Essek has been talking about.”

Yasha yanks the lollypop out of her mouth and eyes it suspiciously.

“Jeez, it was a joke. I wouldn’t do that to you,” she pouts, sounding genuinely hurt.

“I know, sorry.” She leans forward and reaches for Jester. The tiefling reaches back for her hand and they lace their fingers together, palm to palm. “I’m just paranoid because I think Essek is seriously considering doing just that.”

“I won’t let him,” Beau promises, looking at their joined hands with an inscrutable expression. “But I’m gonna keep campaigning for any option that doesn’t end with you dead.” Bitterness creeps back in her voice at the end of her statement.

“Sure, Beau,” Yasha concedes, defeated, “you can do that.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter, and the longest one. Sorry for the delay, I've started school and I'm swamped with homework.  
> Shot-out to my wife for beta-reading 20k of silliness!  
> Hope you enjoy the conclusion :)

_Flowers had always been an omen of death for her people. They could be nothing else. But when her aimless wandering took her to the Empire, she discovered that they could also be a sign of life. She saw brides walking to their husbands with a bouquet in hand, she saw children making crowns and necklaces to decorate themselves, she saw flowers being given as presents, as comfort, as proof of love._

_Molly was the one who came up with the idea to collect them for her wife; he even gave her a book in which to press them._

_“Flowers for the start, and flowers for the end,” he said._

_Yasha thought Zuala would have liked the irony._

***

She drifts in and out of consciousness, and loses track of how many days she’s been in bed, but every time she wakes up, one or more of the Nein are there with her, and Frumpkin is curled up in her bed. The spells and potions barely make a dent on the pain anymore, and the flowers come up almost every two hours. Or so Caleb has told her.

She knows she doesn’t have a lot of time left, and she is sick of her room. It has become a prison, and now, even the lovely flowers that Jester had painted for her seem to mock her. She asks Caduceus to carry her to the roof, so that at least she can see the sky. He agrees, and goes to fetch some pillows to put up for comfort before coming back for her. For all that he is skinny as a beanpole, he can be deceptively strong; he gathers her in his arms, wrapped in a blanket, and carries her upstairs as if she weighed no more than a feather. He puts her down gently, setting her right under the tree so she can lean her back against the bark. It’s midday, or so he tells her; the sky is dark as always, the stars and the tree lights are twinkling. He leaves for a moment and returns with a tray with tea and a piece of carrot cake.

“Not the healthiest of snacks, but I think we can make an exception for one day,” he comments, indulgent.

She laughs. His baking experiments have kept them full of baked goods for weeks now. She takes a bite of the cake, and its spiced flavor bursts in her mouth. It is moist, easy to swallow, and the icing is not too sweet. “This might be your best one yet,” she says around the mouthful.

He sits next to her, hip to hip, and serves the tea from the pot. The brew is not one of her favorites, but it’s one that has analgesic effects. She blows on it to cool it faster, and rests her head on Caduceus’ shoulder. They sit in silence for a while.

Eventually, Caduceus speaks up. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the Grove, these days. I have even dreamed of it. It might mean that Melora wants me to go back, or I might just be homesick.” He smiles. “It wouldn’t be the first time that I interpret her signs in a way that would suit me.”

“I’m sure she would forgive you that.” She thinks of all the trespasses her god has forgiven her. The Wildmother seems much more lenient.

“She might. You never know.” He pauses to take a sip from his mug. “In any case, I was thinking of at least returning for a short visit, one of these days. Just to see how Nila and her family are getting on, and how far the corruption has reached.” His voice remains detached, but his ears droop. “If there is anything left to save.”

Yasha wracks her brain in search for something to cheer him up. “I would like to see your home.” _Lame_.

“Oh, that’s right, you’ve never been there. I forgot.” His ears perk up again. “It’s not a cheerful place, cemeteries rarely are, but it is peaceful. Tending the graves is not that bad of a job, in my opinion. But it can get lonely. The only visitors I used to get were people that were grieving, and those are rarely good company.”

There’s fondness in his tone, a longing. It is easy to imagine him there, with his quiet demeanor, speaking to the plants as she tends to the graves on which they grow. The image brings a smile to Yasha’s lips. “Do you miss…that kind of life? Do you regret leaving, even if it was, your mission, or whatever?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that. I’m just a little homesick, like I said.” He sighs, looking into the distance. “Maybe when the forest is healed, it will be a better place to return to. If I don’t have to go back to being alone.”

She doesn’t know what to answer to that, but he doesn’t seem to be expecting a reply. After a moment of silence, he speaks again.

“I was wondering if you would like to be buried there.”

Yasha’s heart clenches. She looks at the firbolg, whose head is bowed, face obscured by a curtain of pinkish white hair. She can see a couple of drops fall into his tea. “Oh, Caduceus.”

“I don’t know what the traditions of your people are, if you would prefer an air burial, or to be cremated, or something else entirely.” His voice is wobbly, but he presses on, breath barely hitching. “If you do want to be put under the earth, though, let me know what you want me to plant on your grave. I was planning on flowers, before, but now that they’ve made you sick it seems in poor taste, doesn’t it?” He puts the mug down on the floor and presses his sleeve against his eyes to dry them, but the tears won’t stop coming.

Yasha tugs him closer, and Caduceus turns to look at her. He cradles her face in his big hands and brings their foreheads together, nuzzling at her. He sniffles a little.

“It would be an honor, to prepare your body for the final rest after you’ve passed on,” he says, choking down a sob, “and to care for your grave when I go back to my duties.”

“It would be an honor for me, to rest in the land of your family.” She’s crying as well. “You should plant…whatever you like to drink most, okay? That’s what would make me happy.”

Caduceus nods and hugs her fully, shaking a little. They stay together like this until his breathing returns to normal, and then he pulls back, but remains leaning by her side. His tea turns cold in the mug.

\---

She plans to stay in the roof for the rest of…her life or the day, whichever ends sooner. The former seems more likely. Fjord appears a couple of hours later, intent on relieving Caduceus. The firbolg is reticent to leave, but they convince him. Fjord sits by her side, without touching her. They don’t speak, but there’s something grounding in his presence. Yasha enjoys their shared silence. She is glad to have his company; it reminds them of the times they would share a watch on the road, and for a moment she feels the peacefulness of those simpler times. She risks a side-eyed look to him; there’s quiet tears going down his face. When Nott arrives to take his place, Yasha can see him wipe his face hastily.

“Hey,” she calls out before he disappears down the stairs, “it’s been great, captain.”

He looks at her one last time, nods, and continues down.

Nott is not talking much, either, squirming where she has sat down. Eventually, she jumps to her feet and asks Yasha if she can braid her hair. She combs her hair with her fingers, careful not to scratch her scalp with her claws, and parts it in three parts. She braids a crown around her head and puts the rest of the hair in three fishtail style braids.

“Oh,” Nott says after it’s done. “That looks awful.” Yasha laughs as Nott unmakes the whole thing, and tries to replicate the hairdo in which Yasha usually styles her own hair.

As she is finishing her task, Caleb comes up the stairs with Essek in tow. They have a determination in their eyes that is all too familiar; they’re here for a last-ditch attempt at convincing her to get the procedure. She’s tired of arguing about it, so she just throws a pillow at them. “Go make out somewhere else.” The pillow only barely reaches the halfway point between Yasha and them. Her strength is long gone now.

Caleb glances at it, unimpressed. “Nott, could you give us a second?”

Nott finishes tying up a braid, kisses the top of her head, and gets off the roof without a comment.

“Essek, I’m tired and I don’t wanna hear it,” Yasha whines, bringing up her blanket to cover her shoulders. Maybe if she looks pitiful enough they will make this attempt a short one.

He raises his arms in a placating gesture. “This was Caleb’s idea, I’m just here as support.”Caleb elbows him sharply on the ribs, and he grunts, then sighs. “And I’m very grateful that you told Caleb so he could stop me from making a great mistake, so I’m here to maybe return the favor.” He stares at her for a moment, and his gaze softens. “You look like shit.”

“Thank you,” Yasha smiles at him sardonically, and he narrows his eyes.

“You’re welcome,” he answers just as petulantly.

“Let’s get to the point,” Caleb cuts off Yasha’s reply. “I think you should let Jester and Beau know the truth.”

Yasha’s eyes widen in horror. “Why? They would feel so guilty about it. I’d rather literally take it to my grave.”

Essek huffs, amused and exasperated. “That’s what I thought you’d say, you dumb fucking…”

“Essek!”

“Fine!” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Just listen to the rest of our plan, will you?”

She nods a bit reluctantly.

Caleb is fidgeting, his fingers curling and uncurling, rubbing against each other, but his voice is steady. “Yesterday I summoned everyone to talk about your situation. I have been keeping them updated on your condition or…the parts of it that were not private, at least. But I took the opportunity to mention that I thought the one causing this was likely one of us.”

“Not that much of a reach, really,” Essek interjects. “Who else could it be?”

Yasha nods. The rest of the Nein would probably have guessed as much on their own, sooner or later.

Caleb sighs, relieved that she doesn’t see it as a betrayal. “I also told them that if I was the cause of your disease, I would much rather you forgot me and stayed alive, no matter how much it hurt when you were no longer my friend.” He pauses, breath shuddering.

Yasha wishes she were strong enough right now to stand and go give him a hug. Luckily Essek is there, and he places a hand on Caleb’s shoulder, grounding him, and gives him an encouraging nod.

“They all said the same thing. Every single one of them. And Jester even said…” he smiles, love and sadness mixing in his eyes, “that we brought you back before, and we can do it again. That you have a big heart and would be able to befriend us again in no time, even if they carved a chunk out of it. And I am inclined to believe her.”

The cough, and the accompanying forget-me-nots, don’t surprise her in the least. She bends over the bowl, which Caduceus left within her reach, and waits for it to be over. Essek drops his levitation spell and kneels next to her, patting her back.

When she gets her breath back –whatever’s left of it–, she frowns. “I don’t think that’s possible. The surgery–”

“Doesn’t remove the ability to love,” Essek gently interrupts her as he rises back to his feet. “It’s true that that used to be the case, but the clerics of the Luxon have been refining the procedure in the last century. The surgeon I consulted assured me of it, even said that I should be careful, because there existed a possibility of me falling for him again.”

Caleb reaches for his hand as he speaks, lacing their fingers together and holding it tightly, his face in a grimace of anxiety over what almost happened. Essek squeezes back with a soft smile.

“So… would I really be able to get them back?” Yasha asks hesitantly. _Would_ _I still be myself?_

“They are both very willing to put in whatever effort is necessary for that to happen, yes,” Caleb confirms”

Yasha stares at Essek. “Tell me you’re absolutely sure of this.”

“I am absolutely sure of this.” His voice doesn’t waver.

“And you’re not lying to get me to agree?”

“I am not.”

“We can get Jester up here to cast Zone of Truth if you don’t believe him,” Caleb pipes up. He turns to Essek. “Right?”

Essek scowls. “Yes,” he agrees through gritted teeth. He stares back at her, “I give you my word.”

The intensity of his gaze is almost scary. Yasha is caught up in it, entranced. There is a part of her, the part that made her run when her tribe wanted to kill her for who she loved, the part that rages when her friends are in danger, the part that kept her fighting against Obann’s charm day after day, even when it was clear that she would be incapable of breaking it on her own… That part of her wants to live. She hears the rumble of thunder in the distance. If she keeps her memories, if she can be their friend again, after all is said and done, maybe it is worth it. And if she eventually gets sick again, well, at least she will have had more time with them, and what more can she ask? Their lives are dangerous and precarious as it is. A long life is not a guarantee for any of them anyway.

“Okay,” she says, hope blooming in her chest. “Let’s do this.”

Caleb and Essek look at each other and laugh, disbelieving. “Great!” Caleb exclaims. “Wow, I did not think we would get this far.” He grins, happier than Yasha has seen him in a long, long time. “So, back to the idea of letting Jester and Beau know about your feelings…”

She laughs. It makes her cough up a little blood, and she spits it to the side. “Very funny.”

“They will find out eventually, one way or another,” Caleb reminds her, “is it not better to give them a, um, heads-up, maybe? Before you come back feeling nothing for them.”

Yasha raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that kill me instantly, though? When I confess my feelings, and they don’t reciprocate?”

“That’s why I’m here, really,” Essek bows his head. “It won’t be immediate, it could take up to an hour, a very not-fun one. But I have a spell prepared that would freeze your body in its current state until we can get you to the healers. Caleb and I will be downstairs, to give you some privacy, but he will be listening through Frumpkin. If he sees you getting worse, we’ll come up and I’ll cast the spell.”

“Right.” Yasha tries to think hard for another excuse.

“Don’t you think they deserve to know?” Caleb asks with a soft voice.

Essek rolls his eyes behind him. “Just tell them. Don’t be a coward. It’s the right thing to do.”

Yasha groans. “Fine, then!” She sighs. She has nothing to lose at this point, right? “Tell them to come up.”

\---

Frumpkin is sitting on one of the lower branches, tail hanging, grooming a very bedraggled Sprinkle. The weasel seems uncaring of the sharp teeth near its head, Yasha suspects, because it craves death. It’s early evening, and the air has cooled a little; Jester and Beau are sitting in front of her on their crossed legs, and she’s sharing her blanket to cover all of their laps. Her mouth is dry as a desert. She has only had a few minutes to come up with what she will say to them, and she has come up empty. Seconds are trickling by; they are looking at her expectantly, and she feels like she is going to throw up what little food she has managed to keep down.

“I wanted to say…” she pauses, clears her throat, wrings her hands together. “I’ve decided to get the surgery.”

There is a second of pause, and then their faces explode in delight. Beau yells “Thank fuck!” and Jester crawls forward to give her a big hug, tell her that she is brave and that they are so proud of her.

“I’m not,” she sighs, a bit dizzy from the proximity, “I’m just…I wanna stay with you, even if…” she can’t finish.

“It’s okay,” Jester says, sitting back to her previous position, “no one is going to judge you for this choice.”

“Yeah, I’m sure _they_ will understand,” Beau confirms, a bit of bitterness seeping in.

Jester looks at Yasha with happy tears in her eyes. “I’m so relieved that you’ve come to your senses.”

“Really?” Yasha’s eyes widen. “I figured you would think it was…romantic or something, to die for love.”

“Yeah no that’s fucking stupid, and if you say something like this ever again, I’m gonna whack you with my lollipop.”

“You think I’m doing the right thing, then?” she confirms, looking from one to the other.

“YES!” Jester insists.

“Yeah, Yash, how much clearer can we make it? We’ll carry you there ourselves if we have to.”

“We probably have to, at least me. No one else is strong enough.” Jester brings up an arm and flexes it flashily, making the others laugh.

All of a sudden, Yasha finds it difficult to breathe. Jester reaches for the bowl and places it on her lap just in the nick of time. She coughs, and two flowers come up, one for each of the beautiful women in front of her. She braces for more, but it seems to have stopped. Beau has moved closer to pat at her back and now frowns down at the blossoms, giving them a venomous look.

“Man, I used to love white roses, but I think I hate them now. That has to be a bitch and a half to have in your throat.”

Yasha laughs, the sound watery. “Yeah, that’s an accurate description.”

“Who is it, anyway?” Beau asks as she puts the bowl away. Her tone is nonchalant, and she doesn’t look Yasha in the eye, but her curiosity is palpable. “I might want to punch them anyway, just for the hell of it.”

“You don’t have to tell us,” Jester quickly adds, but her expression betrays how much she wants to know as well.

For a long moment, she considers backing off. She has suffered enough, hasn’t she? Must she also endure the pain of being rejected, the humiliation? Not to mention the agony that it will surely put her in, even if Essek manages to stall her death. But…it would not be fair to them. She sighs, and looks up to the tree. Frumpkin has stopped paying attention to Sprinkle, and is looking back at her, his eyes softly glowing as they do when Caleb is looking through them.

“That’s why I wanted to talk to you.” She decides to just plunge in. “It’s you.”

“I KNEW– wait,” Jester stops her victorious yell abruptly, “which one of us?”

Yasha swallows thickly, feeling the plants in her lungs start to twist around each other. “Both of you.”

Their mouths drop open. They stare at each other, then at Yasha, then at each other again. The silence seems eternal, but it cannot be more than a few seconds before Beau says, “We were both correct, then.”

“What?” Yasha’s head is swimming in fear and embarrassment and lack of air. She can only hope that she will pass out soon, so that she doesn’t have to hear them let her down gently.

“I thought it was Beau, and she thought it was me,” Jester explains, almost as breathless as Yasha, clearly still processing the information. “We also suspected Jourrael, but I guess we were wrong about that.”

“Yeah, no, she…too stabby,” Yasha sputters out, her heart hammering on her chest. She looks at them, trying to find any other reaction than surprise, and silently begs for Essek to come up soon.

Slowly, Beau seems to shake off the shock, a bright smile blooming on her face. “This is great news! You don’t have to go through the surgery!”

Yasha stares at her uncomprehendingly. “But…”

Jester seems to come off the surprise as well. “We love you,” she says as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Yasha’s expression softens. “I know that, but…”

“We love you _like that_ ,” Jester clarifies, “both of us.”

Yasha looks down and grips the blanket on her fists, her knuckles turning white. “Don’t lie to me. I know you mean well, but it doesn’t work like that.”

“We’re not lying,” Beau assures her, her voice light with relief. “We’ve wanted to invite you into our relationship practically since day one, but…”

“You were sick! We wanted to wait until you felt better!” Jester looks at the bowl overflowing with flowers. “Oh my god, Yasha, I’m so sorry we didn’t say anything sooner! If we’d known…”

“You’re in love with me?” Yasha interrupts her, voice full of wonder.

“Of course we are.” Beau looks at her with fervent intensity. “And we’ve been so jealous that you might have been dying over somebody else, because apparently we’re idiots.”

“Idiots in love,” Jester remarks.

Something collapses in Yasha’s chest, and for a moment she can’t breathe. She fears that it was too late and she is actually dying, and then she is bending to her side and coughing the biggest thing she ever has. When it is finally out after an agonizing minute, she sees not only flowers, but stems and roots, have fallen to the ground. Then she remembers the same thing happening to Zuala, who healed only after the disease had progressed to its final stages. Her insides are scrapped raw but her lungs feel empty, blessedly empty, and even the lingering pain goes away when Jester casts a Healing Word on her.

“It’s gone, it worked.” She turns around to look at them, and takes a truly deep breath. “Please don’t say sike,” she says between giggles.

“Never,” Jester promises, and she leaps forward to wrap her in a bone-crushing hug. Yasha hugs her back, eyes still wide in wonder. She cups the back of her head and rubs her back as the tiefling laughs in her ear.

Beau tugs her girlfriend out of Yasha’s lap after a minute, taking her place immediately. “Please, can I kiss you?” she asks with urgency.

She wants to, but she can still feel the blood in her mouth. “I think my mouth tastes like death.”

Beau scoffs. “Tough titties!” She cups Yasha’s face in her hands, but hesitates when she is an inch from her lips. “Unless that was a no?”

Yasha gulps. “It was not.”

Beau closes the distance and gives her a lingering kiss, only separating when Jester pushes her away so she can do the same. Neither of them cares about the iron taste.

They settle on each of her sides, playfully fighting over her kisses, and Yasha’s heart has never felt more full.

\---

Downstairs, Caleb snaps his fingers to make Frumpkin disappear, and looks at Essek with a big smile on his face.

“Come. Let us go tell the others that Yasha is okay.”

Essek stops him a moment to kiss him deeply. They share a private smile, and they go spread the good news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been one hell of a ride. I've never written anything this long. Thank you all who commented and left kudos, it means the world to me!  
> Someone suggested that I make a spin-off fic and I write the scene of Caleb going to get Essek....I might. But it might take a while, because of the aforementioned homework.


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